


Bittersweet Tooth

by onehellanerd



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Pre-11/20, Shuake Week 2020, Time Skips, but it all takes place between Futaba's palace and end of Sae's palace, the Phantom Thieves give advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onehellanerd/pseuds/onehellanerd
Summary: The Phantom Thieves start picking up on Akira's (not) relationship with Akechi, and of course they all have something to say about it. Frankly, Akira doesn't know what to do about his crush, and neither do they.For Shuake Week 2020 (very late) day 3 prompt "Chocolate"
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74
Collections: ShuAke Week 2020





	Bittersweet Tooth

Of course it’s dear Ann who notices first. Self-admittedly not the most intelligent of people - school-wise, anyway - she often surprises Akira with her emotional depth and sense of empathy. Though maybe after these months, he shouldn’t be surprised that she seems to know his feelings better than he does. 

“You’ve been awful quiet today,” she notes to him over the table they share. Friday after school is his weekly “friend date” with Ann (though he thinks it’s her weekly excuse to eat sweets, since he will never stop her from indulging her sweet tooth), and this week she’s chosen a new little diner with supposedly excellent milkshakes. Her long, slender fingers are curled around the straw that pokes out of her chocolate milkshake, her head propped on her other hand, and she gazes at him across the table. 

“What?” asks Akira dumbly. She glowers at him, as if to say, _My point exactly._ Well, it isn’t his fault, he was still thinking about that jazz club that Akechi had invited him to last night, and how things always feel a little strange with that boy because Akira is _definitely_ suspicious of Akechi hearing Morgana and Akechi is probably almost certainly suspicious of him being a Phantom Thief, but that doesn’t stop the weird swooping feeling Akira feels in his stomach every time the detective texts him. And the weird fluttery feeling he feels thinking about the jazz club last night. 

“Come on, Akira, fess up,” she insists, blue eyes wide. 

“To _what?_ ” he asks, still confused, and she rolls her eyes. 

“Your crush, dummy. Who is it? Makoto? That Yoshizawa girl? Your weird doctor friend?”

“Not my type,” he answers automatically, and her jaw hangs open mid-listing of every girl he knows. 

“Okay, okay,” she recovers quickly. “I can work with that. Ryuji, then? Yusuke? Mishima? Ew…”

“Mishima’s not that bad,” he interjects defensively. “Poor guy already gets picked on by the whole school, we don’t need to add our group to that too.”

“Okay, fine. But it’s not him, is it?” she demands, glaring at him keenly, determined to get the truth. 

“Ann, I promise you with all the love I hold for you, I have _no idea_ what you’re talking about.”

She crosses her arms and her scowl deepens. “Don’t play the fool with me, Akira Kurusu. You’ve been sighing and gazing off into the distance like a lovesick idiot and you’re not allowed to crush on somebody without telling me.”

“Well…” he hesitates, and she leans forward, eyebrows lifting eagerly. “I guess I’ve been hanging out with Akechi lately.”

She squeals loudly, in her excitement knocking the table with so much force that her milkshake tumbles over. After a few more moments of chaos and a few yen spent on a new shake, she has calmed down enough to demand as many details as Akira can give. And he gives them, honestly. Tells her how Akechi comes to Leblanc sometimes, how they play billiards together and Akechi smokes him every time, how their relationship feels less like a friendship and more like a lighthearted rivalry. 

“I’m not even sure he _likes_ me,” Akira admits honestly. “Dude is so happy to beat me at pool, you should see the way his eyes get all lit up. But he also seems proud of me for improving.”

“Akira, if he didn’t like spending time with you, he wouldn’t keep doing it,” says Ann with an eye roll, as if this fact is obvious. As if anything to do with Goro Akechi is obvious. “Anyways, you have my full support, as long as you promise to keep giving me all the juicy details!” Akira promises. 

——

Makoto is the next to figure that something’s up. It’s lunchtime at Shujin, and somehow Ryuji dragged Ann into a lunch hour workout, so their usual party is split for the day. 

“Sorry, they were out of the Friday special,” Akira wanders into the scene with a sigh of disappointment. He collapses to the bench next to Makoto on the return from an unsuccessful trip to the school store. “They had chocolate bars left, though,” and he drops one onto her lap. She eyes it with disappointment but thanks him anyway, and they chat idly through their meal… and then Makoto sets her chocolate bar down with intention, turning her forceful gaze on him, and Akira knows he’s got something to answer for. 

“Ann says you’ve been spending a lot of time with Akechi,” she says without prompting. He groans and runs his hands through his unkempt hair, a vain attempt to hide his chagrin. 

“It’s not my fault the guy keeps inviting me out,” he says with a stab at a dismissive tone. She tsks her tongue, and he knows he failed. 

“Akira, I want you to be happy, I do,” she continues, as if he hasn’t spoken, “but I have to urge you to reconsider with this one. You _know_ Akechi is suspicious. He could hear Morgana, remember.”

“I know, I know.” Akira tugs his fingers through his hair one more time and pretends not to notice the face Makoto makes at his untidiness. He stares up at some of the longer black strands to avoid meeting her eyes. “I swear I’m just trying to keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer, yeah?” He winks, to her total lack of amusement. 

“This is serious, Akira,” she all but snaps. “Potential Metaverse user aside, if you let him get too close, he could figure out our… secret… and do a lot of damage.”

“I think he’s as suspicious of us as we are of him,” Akira responds wryly. “Honestly, Makoto, you think I don’t already tell myself all these things on a loop every time I see him? When, you know, I’m not thinking about how hot he is.” Makoto covers her face with her hands and groans something like _“we’re doomed”_.

“Please just think this through,” she pleads, dropping her hands. “If something goes wrong, it’s more than just you at stake. And…” He opens his mouth to retort, but the hard lines around her frown are softening. Then, she reaches out and touches his knee, and this gesture is enough that he hesitates to hear what she has to say. “I don’t want you getting hurt by him.”

 _At least we’re on the same page about that,_ he thinks to himself, but aloud he promises to be more careful. 

——

Haru convinces him to help her try out a new chocolate muffin recipe, for the bakery she hopes to open. So she swings by Leblanc after closing time and they prepare the batter together. After some whisking, pouring, and a lot of dirty dishes, they retreat to the counter seats to wait for the muffins to finish in the oven. Haru begins her interrogation with no preamble.

“What was it that Akechi-kun meant,” Haru says, “when he told you he would see you again soon? When he saw us at the school festival?”

Akira can only be fervently grateful that she didn’t choose to say _when he blackmailed us at the school festival._ It’s quite possible that he’ll never recover from the glare Makoto had directed at him during their whole interaction with Akechi, and he’s pretty sure she was actually spitting fire at Akechi’s slightly-too-cheerful parting jab of _“See you this weekend, Kurusu.”_

“Akechi and I made plans to go to the jazz club again, that’s all.” Akira self-consciously scratches the back of his neck. Haru eyes him, her expression hesitant.

“Is that… wise?” she asks carefully. “We are pretty sure he’s going to betray us, after all.”

“I made these plans with him _before_ he blackmailed us, and it seems kind of rude to back out now,” he points out lightly. She chuckles, and Akira silently thanks whatever gods exist that he now has a friend who laughs at his stupid jokes.

“Maybe so.” She’s quiet for a moment, and then she leans in, her eyes alight with adorable mischief. “Is it a date?”

He coughs and rubs the back of his neck again. Truth is, he still isn’t sure what exactly these frequent outings with Akechi are. But the more time they spend together, the more Akira likes them… and the more he knows he shouldn’t.

“I think it’s best for me to keep an eye on him,” he answers finally, and while his answer is true, it isn’t the whole truth. “And it would be too suspicious for me to cancel our plans, he can’t realize we’re onto him.” They don’t yet know what Akechi’s exact plans are with regards to the Phantom Thieves, but even Akira isn’t vain enough to think that he isn’t planning something. “Maybe… he’ll slip up and reveal something.”

“That’s true, but it doesn’t answer my question,” Haru points out with a small smile.

“Ugh!” Akira covers his eyes with his hands, feeling his face heat up. “Fine. I don’t know if it’s a date. But. I want it to be.” He drops his hands and looks at her. Her smile has lessened, and her expression is more sympathetic now than amused. With a touch of desperation mixed with his stab at humor, he groans, “Why can’t a guy just have a _normal_ crush on a hot dude without worrying about said dude turning him in to the cops?”

She pats his knee comfortingly. “We don’t know if he’ll actually do anything,” she says reassuringly, then adds with a twinkle in her eye, “Maybe there’s hope for your love life yet. I really think Akechi is a good guy.”

He agrees hollowly.

——

Ryuji’s mom’s birthday is coming up, so Akira agrees to go to the gift shop with Ryuji to help him pick out a box of chocolates to give to her. In hindsight, he should’ve been suspicious the moment _chocolate_ was mentioned.

“Dude,” says Ryuji as they wander through the store, “can you tell Akechi to, like, shut up?”

Akira shoves his hands into his pockets and doesn’t answer. Truthfully, now that they know the entirety of Akechi’s plans, he wishes he could wash his hands of the entire Goro Akechi business. 

“I mean, for real.” Ryuji doesn’t need any prompting to keep going. “Dude won’t shut up about how much he hangs out with you. It’s like he wants us to think he’s got some kind of control over you.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind that so much,” Akira muses aloud, more to annoy Ryuji than anything, though the mental image of being dominated by Goro Akechi _is_ admittedly enticing.

“Dude!” Ryuji wrinkles his nose and punches Akira in the arm.

“Ouch!”

“You deserved that,” Ryuji retorts dismissively. Then he glances over his shoulder, as if to check whether anyone is listening, and leans in conspiratorially. “D’you think A _sketch_ i is even into guys like that?”

“I sure hope so,” Akira responds fervently, and this time dodges out of the way of Ryuji’s punch. “Relax, dude, I’m joking.”

“Sometimes I’m not sure,” Ryuji shoots back. “C’mon, man. This guy is supposed to _kill_ you, you can’t keep mooning after him! You know that’s exactly what he wants.”

Akira flinches involuntarily at the truth behind Ryuji’s words, which hurt more than any punch to the arm. Ryuji’s right, and he knows that intimately, but. Some (maybe masochistic) part of him has refused to acknowledge the truth of the situation, living in the fantasy parallel universe where Akechi _isn’t_ going to shoot him in a few weeks, and eventually they will confess their feelings and ride off into the sunset as rivalrous lovers. (Or something. Not that he has ever imagined that, of course.)

“It’s all a charade,” Akira insists hollowly. “If I stop spending time with him, then he’ll know something’s up.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to _like_ hanging out with him,” Ryuji retorts. “There’s plenty of guys out there, bro. Why’s it gotta be this one?”

But _this one_ is handsome and mysterious, and always has a wisecrack to match Akira’s own or a point of view to counter his. It is too easy to be around Akechi, for they are two sides to the same coin, or reflections in a mirror, or a left and a right hand fitted into the same pair of gloves. Natural friends… or natural rivals. 

But of course this sounds ridiculous, so his only answer to Ryuji is a helpless shrug. 

“Well,” says Ryuji, wryly but not without sympathy, “don’t come crying to me when he shoots you and breaks your heart.”

——

The days tick closer to his date of execution, and weirdly Akechi just seems to refuse to stay away. Akira is cooking in Leblanc’s kitchen, making Sojiro’s curry of course. In one hand a measuring spoon, in the other, the curry’s secret ingredient, cocoa powder. He shoots a glance over his shoulder at the cafe, which, for once, is busy, someone at every table. And Goro Akechi at the bar, watching Akira with the slightest of smiles. It makes his heart skip a beat, though Akira thinks that smile could mean anything from “I really like this guy” to “I’m a spider and the fly is in my trap”... or all of the above. 

_I’m really in trouble,_ Akira realizes. With some effort, he turns back to the curry in the pot, though the back of his neck tingles under Akechi’s watchful eye. He sets the cocoa down and closes his eyes, wistfully imagining a world where he isn’t a Phantom Thief and Akechi isn’t plagued by demons that he won’t admit to. A world where they could be on the same side, rather than divided by arbitrary boundaries. 

It’s… nice to dream.

“You’re quieter than usual, today,” Akechi comments in his formal-yet-familiar tone when Akira sets the dish of curry before him and slides into the seat next to him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Akira isn’t selling his true thoughts tonight or ever, but as he ponders a response, he examines Akechi - who seems sincere, for all intents and purposes; his head is tilted, his eyes wider than usual with a glint of concern - or _is_ that glint concern, or just a thirst for any knowledge that would give him an upper hand? Akira feels sick at the thought, the thread of suspicion that he can’t afford to shake.

“What would your life be like, if I never got sent here?” he finds himself asking. Akechi seems to consider the question seriously, tucking a finger under his chin in thought.

“Well, I suspect I would be drinking mediocre instant coffee and eating mediocre microwave dinners, and my chess games would be much easier to win,” Akechi muses finally. “Not to mention my, ah, work life would be quite a bit more boring.” At this, he actually winks at Akira, at their shared secret. Somehow this answer makes him feel both better and worse - better knowing that he has at least had some positive impact on Akechi’s life - worse knowing that it’s all for nothing. “Why do you ask?” Akechi continues, clueless to the storm brewing in Akira’s mind.

Akira looks down at his curry, stirring it mindlessly with his spoon, suddenly not hungry. “I guess now that this whole thing is close to ending, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how it all started.” It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s definitely not the full truth, and he senses Akechi ready to spring on his words like a hawk on a mouse. So he stops that line of conversation with the best strategy he knows; he looks up at Akechi and grins and wiggles his eyebrows invitingly as he says, “Speaking of chess, you up for another game tonight? I wanna see if I can start a winning streak.”

Predictably, Akechi’s eyes narrow, and he seems to lose all memory of the prior conversation. “You’re on. Prepare to lose,” he shoots back menacingly.

And so the charade continues.


End file.
